The Power. The Passion. The Corner.

This has nothing whatever to do with design, but it amuses me and... well, who the heck’s blog is this anyway??

It all began when I was listening to RadioDerb over at NRO and it suddenly struck me that John Derbyshire and John Cleese are basically the same person. (I am entertaining dark suspicions about witness protection programs and time travel…)

This naturally led to my musing about the leading roles in ‘NRO: The Movie’ (tagline: The Power. The Passion. The Corner.) Here is our all-star cast:

John Derbyshire ... John Cleese
William F. Buckley ... Christopher Walken
Rich Lowry ... Steve Carell
KLo ... JLo
Ramesh Ponnuru ... M. Night Shaymalan
(He could also pinch-hit as director, introducing a surprise ending in which it is revealed that Christopher 'Damn Fool' Buckley has, indeed, been possessed by pod people. Not much of a surprise, really...)
Jonah Goldberg ... Philip Seymour Hoffman
(But, in Seymour Hoffman's cute ‘State & Main’ days, not in his ‘gotta-prove-I’m-a-credible-indie-actor-so-I’ll-be-in-rubbish-like-‘The-Savages’ days.)
Victor Davis Hanson ... I have never felt the death of Millard Mitchell more keenly than at this moment…

The Brilliant and Sexy Mark Steyn shall, of course, play himself.

Please feel free to add your own on-the-nose casting to this inspired and definitive list.

(As a nod to the design-orientation of this blog I will note that the cover of John Derbyshire's book is both hilarious and depressing.)

Consenting To Dream

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world. - George Santayana

Ruben Toledo's cover illustrations almost make me want to read these crashing bores. ("...if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger..." Rubbish.)





Oh, what spellbinding phantasmagoria he could work with a Flannery O'Connor book cover!

Tangentially, Ruben and his wife Isabel have the coolest apartment ever. It's like a cross between the Mad Hatter's tea party and the disjecta membra of Salvador Dali.

(Huzzahs for Genna -- who has the best blog ever -- for inspiring this post!)

The Exploding Girl

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. - Henry David Thoreau



I first caught sight of this poster design in a Google thumbnail -- and even in that small, pixelated space I was awestruck by the perfect arrangement of these elements. The sensitive placement of the title is particularly lovely. The rounded corners of the frame give the viewer the feeling of looking in on this girl through a viewfinder.

Everything speaks to the profundity of everyday intimacy.

(I can always tell a good design by the way it can move me to absurdly faux-poetic prose.)